Omer Fast

Biography

Omer Fast was born in 1972 in Jerusalem, Israel, and grew up in Israel and New York City. He studied english at Tufts University in Medford/Somerville (USA) until 1995, followed by studies at Hunter College in New York City. After earning his Master’s degree in 2000, he began working as a freelance artist, primarily in the field of video installation. In 2001, he moved to Berlin. His works have been shown at, among others, The Whitney Biennial in New York (2002), the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich (2004), the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2005), and the Museum of Modern Art Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna (2007). 

In 2008, Omer Fast received the Bucksbaum Award at the Whitney Biennial for his experimental multiple-projection "The Casting," for which he conducted interviews with a member of the U.S. military before a deployment to Iraq. In his video work "Nostalgia" (2009), he portrayed a man from a dystopian Britain seeking asylum in Africa. For this work, he received the National Gallery Prize for Young Art in Berlin in 2009. 

Fast's half-hour experimental documentary "5000 Feet is the Best" (DE/US 2011), which focuses on the pilot of an American military drone, was shown at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and at CPH:DOX, among others. In 2012, Fast presented the experimental short film "Continuity" (2012) at Documenta 13 in Kassel, a surreal story about a German soldier in Afghanistan, whose parents in Germany are waiting for his return. "Continuity" won a Special Prize at the German Short Film Prize and the Jury Prize at the Hamburg Short Film Festival. 

At the 2014 Berlinale, the experimental documentary "Everything That Rises Must Converge" (DE/US 2014) had its world premiere in the Forum Expanded section: It follows four adult film performers in Los Angeles as they begin their day at home, get into their cars, and drive to work at an undefined residential building in the San Fernando Valley.

With "Remainder" (GB/DE 2016), an adaptation of Tom McCarthy’s novel, Fast made his first feature film; it premiered at the BFI Film Festival in London in October 2015 and celebrated its German premiere in the Panorama section at the Berlinale in February 2016. In the same year, a 85-minute extended version of "Continuity" was shown at the Berlinale in Forum Expanded, later also screening in theaters. 

Also in 2016, Omer Fast became a professor of media art at the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) in Karlsruhe. He also held additional exhibitions, including at the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin (2016) and at the Times Art Museum in Guangzhou, China (2018). His works are part of several collections, including Tate Modern (London), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), and the Centre Pompidou (Paris). 

In 2023, Fast transitioned to a position as a professor of film at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts (HfbK). Prior to this, he had begun working on his feature film "Abendland," a surreal story about an environmental activist masked as Angela Merkel, who finds herself in a forest in a utopian parallel world. "Abendland" was released in cinemas in December 2024.